Far From the Truth

Pride is the sensation upon touching, for the first time,
the surface of the object of your affection:
the flag; the victory; the once impossible End; Love.

That being true, or not, it doesn't matter because
a poet will say just about anything
to score more of that Life
that Love high that dreamy
Peace pill poppy Ohm ride
one more one more
c'mon, just one more  ...

Upon learning that even the drop of water
and the thread of fabric are as deep
and ontologically miraculous and full
as the sea or the tissues of thine very own flesh,
brains, bones ...

well, one is likely to suspect
the findings of science as being
a testament of a specific expression,
a particular and practical variety of observation,
through which is told a story of the world
and existence so beyond the senses
that only the mind can reach and touch
this scripture in Braille

and the honest heart will warm
with awe and humility,

and somewhere a head will bow
and the Lord will hear
"amen".

Amateur

Yes, I am an amateur;

A professional executes
a business practice
and acts to fulfill this function
which drives toward one undeniably useful end:
money.

While this is true and fine by me and many,
the amateur will argue, at least within himself,
that this influential, distinguishing variable
renders what could be art, simply product.

And the amateur,
whatever his level of training or skill,
will be sickened by such a motivation.
Thereafter, if he is presented with "opportunity"
he will either scold it or accept it.
In other terms, he will either live off his art
or he will not.

An amateur executes a spiritual practice
and acts to fulfill this function.
He is terribly afraid of influences, such as money,
that might control his productivity
and thereby corrupt his integrity.
He opts, in some rare cases,
to be an amateur because by doing so
he has a higher chance of being great;
in the long run, of course.

In the end, each -- the amateur and the professional --
has produced of himself
a specific breed of human character --
an ambassador of a truth
and principles that constitute him;
an example for all his companions and potential onlookers;
a father to children; a husband to a wife,
a brother and son and friend; a lover;
a being situated between all yesterdays
and all tomorrows;

a creator of things which ultimately express his reasons
for living and for creating.

He seeks to transact with each and everyone who experiences his art,
whatever form it is.

Amateur sounds good to me.
And accurate, until now.

What poem might I write
if I am to become professional?

Would I even write a poem at all?

The Mirror

Beloved Christ, Bodhisattva, Tao, 
open thy lane such that I see it,
and my heart such that I dare to walk it.

Buddha, whisper your name
to the meditating urban monks
so they might guide me
to my very own sanctuary of peace
somewhere between my shoes
and my new khaki baseball cap;

may Jesus' love be in every
sip of water,
maybe I always taste
his miracle there.
May Jesus' love fill me
with awe as my eyes consume
the Truth of one crumb of bread,

may I understand and desire this sustenance,
this wealth, this species of riches
above all else

and may these mundane miracles
render each and every pound of my flesh
worth the same in said crumbs

may the rivers of the world be
a vein to every temple, wrist,
pulsating part, Gaia.

May Mohammed show me
the one and only light
whose beauty is not such at noon
as it is at dawn
nor dusk nor any two hours,
and yet remains of a Single Light.

Whether His Loveliness is veiled
by the angle of the day's hour
or nude as a dazzling gem
in the crown of any day I perceive as being holy,
even if I should lewdly see
a blonde on the blue beaches of Heaven,

or the fury which not even Hell hath
racing with a cloud of hair behind her,
electrified and coming to extinguish
the molten core of the Earth

by the touch of Zeus or
the dance of a shaman
cupping his hands above a thirsty forest,

the arch of Light is raised,
bowed spectrum in light
which makes all beauty sweet
and equally so,
all shades of man,
mind, heart and soul
equally born of and triumphant in
the tempest.

The Rainbow at the end of the storm,
everything but black and white.

There is no diminishing the Light of Life
lest ye turn toward the darkness
unprepared to admire it
or without the torch of Love within you
or the intent of Lords and prophets
to reach where no Light is perceived
and salvage souls there scattered
and lost in the Infinite
which has been too easily confused for Nothingness.

Let me find you, brother,
and you find me --
I lost in your light,
perceiving my confusion
calling it your darkness
and you lost in my light
mis-taking in the same manner
but convinced of the truth of what you spy
for we both possess darkness,
it is true.

No coincidence we find each other in the Darkness, then.
You find the worst of me, and I the worst of you.

Ay, if you could see me praise, celebrate and adore by day
and brave and battle the demons and wolves by night --
tame them into allies, even! -- you would be proud to call me "brother".

I, as you, am a victorious form of Life
and I, too, would and have hated, hunted, and slain --
the lion, the wolf, the wild beast all around and within
are today the dinosaurs of my essence,
they are my roots.  A past I study and learn
not to repeat.

But I have seen the tiger
lick my obnoxious children;
the lion leap to greet
kind and trained explorers;
the monkey, too, has
paused to think before he acts
and the smiling orangutang has signed,
"I love you", from within his cage.

None of which are tricks
or deceptions,
though currently exceptions --
these proofs have me thinking

might we sworn enemies
anull our hate and be exemplary, too?

I offer this:

If you would watch me closely
as I served you,
I would serve you.

And when my back shines
like a mirror under the sun
from minutes, hours, years of
tending to your animals, cultivating your gardens
and doing as your will bids,
as I toil there whistling a tune of liberty
focused on my task
and the beauty and reason in it,
that will be the moment you can shoot or slice me dead
cold, heavy, falling through eternity

should you still desire to do so.

Sadness, Myth, Foolishness, etc.

There is a sadness in peacefulness, but just a touch of it, like a gravity holding down bliss, keeping it in your heart.  I don't know why it is sadness and not some other feeling that hold this bliss, this joy such that it is within, or at least within reach.  But sadness is how it feels to me.  Maybe it it because I can feel the End -- near or far I know not; but that it is there, somewhere, my logic, until now, remains convinced.  This fragile construct of flesh and bone, mind and whatever else -- maybe it will never be destroyed in some sense, in the sense that it will only transform or trans-something such that it can find unity with another species of Being, a higher one, I would like to think, a greater one.  Maybe God or the Universe or even some such Being as no man has ever spied.  Whatever the case, this gentle sadness permitting my soles on these soils, my mass endurable by my own structure and force, is because I have since fallen in Love with all of this Life and Living and Madness and from this love has grown the myth of Eternal Togetherness and from belief in this, I, in the dreamy breeze of Hope, open my fictitious wings and so I must be a fool, and ever more foolish still for knowing I am a fool and being even proud of it and feeling, oddly enough all the more human for it.

I wrote this last night at work while just sitting there thinking about the peacefulness I was feeling and what the feeling of peace seemed to be made up of.  And then this morning I watched a video that a friend of mine posted. It was a TED talk by a guy named Sam Harris who talked about morality and getting scientific about the matter so as to sort of eradicate the world of its harmful myths.  As his bio reads, he is against religion in general because it invites excuses for undesirable human conduct.  While I agree with his to a degree, I can't help but be a romantic and think that myth is essential to the human experience.  The little entry I jotted down last night seems related to the whole idea.

Observation: Happy João Conditions

A happy João is a João who manages to make enough time for himself to cook fresh food, do some writing, exercise, and philosophize with Georgia, the canine expression of the universe, about effective pedogogical methodologies, the ancient art of animal husbandry and the possible connections between the two. I insist that animals can learn how to reason creatively, she insists on crying until I give her some petting-action or distract her with human food and I don't know if this means we agree to disagree or have struck an intellectual accord. But I know this much: so long as there is gas in the stove and a fresh filter in the water thingamajigger, so long as the rent is paid, food and cleaning supplies remain affordable and music remains makable, friends stay close and family within the reach by phone skype or deep meditation, I might begin to consider myself one of the richest men on planet Earth and forcably argue the position with about anyone. But not yet.

something about being alive

It is my honor, privilege and pleasure to walk among the most beautiful and fine
alignments of stardusts and dreamweaves that are Life's Forms, not Plato's,
which all aliens, if they be wise connoisseurs, should come to see:

the human and the tree, flower, snake and bee, one two and three, dance rhythms
our streets ...

there is simply not enough time to see, at least they would claim
that life is wrapped in the box Eternity to be opened, taken, and thrown away
eventually by our mortal decay and reckless folly partial to the perfumes of sin
lustfully slipping in to Rubik's own solution,
a bar called Blue Side on 42nd street
where you will laugh and fall on that slippery loose Love
leaning on a beam you just smashed into the soil
preparing a perimeter for a mistake you will never regret
not knowing that you, yourself, were more a dream
in unborn eyes, a flame in the eternal skies
upon which some quickly coming super-natural soul gazed,
having heard so much of sentient Life, Earth's immeasurably rare benevolence,
and how freaking cool it is to Fear Death
and not be 100 percent sure about anything
except that it will happen and you will pay
Caesar & Co for the all Karmic and Commercial goods and attractions
which, it should be added, result in an amnesia
leaving most scratching at the question in their brains,
"what is the purpose of all of this, anyway?"

It is a common question we prefer to ask than answer.

Here is another, almost never spoken thus:

by aging into a time and mind frame wouldn't we cease to be “we” if thawed out
when the Next Now comes a'rising?

Disbelief in the Self and its Endless Depths
render the divine messengers and prophets dust like everything else
as if said dust was not formed and placed with a care implying intentionality.
As if you yourself are not a prophet, nor is he or she,
nor can anyone be, not anymore.  That's just craziness!
Ay, compadre, I admire the polish of your doubts
and still wouldn't trade them for a single stone of my strewn cairns.

They beget distrust among, between and
then beat the drums of discordant hearts accumulating stress in the shoulders
as the weight of the absoluteness of His truth increases in proportion to the strength
of modern multi-cultural arguments against absoluteness in general;
verily: relativity and plurality of truths, or, if you prefer, the velocity of the Light is constant and the same no matter who or where you are, and, equally important, its white is potentially prismatic, especially at sunrise and sunset, which is as lovely from where I sit as from anywhere.

Whatever book you read, 'tis more a testimony than an argument, can't it be true?  That all behold and bother to testify seems a lovely little skeleton key, presently useless, it seems.  I wonder if there is a book shut away somewhere it might open.

Don't get so bummed learning that you are majority empty space, vacuum.
Don't come a'wantin to cut anyone down or dead on account of the emptiness you might feel, friend;
that emptiness is the space in which powers and forces fly and the wings of your angels,
by whatever name, soar with as much right and love as any others.

Heaven is built of seen and unseen deeds by real live beings.

Surely, the scent of blood will remind anyone of us of how animal we are
and the calm in dead eyes will arouse some intoxicant cocktail
of sympathy and thus goodness, rejoice and thus evil, filling that emptiness
with human feelings when what are needed are divine ones.

Even the scribe sighs as he dreams of eternal words above
his very own name,

thus he reclaims not, he protests so quietly as the whispering slices of his pen, carving, as he imagines, in Time, a deep tattoo on the breast of a Victory Goddess, not a wound, never a wound ...

but no two men perceive the very same, nor believe from the same heart,
though origin's shared.

Space-time is a trick of the eye, even the eye of the mind, so meditate on your Peace
my brother, my sister, Mother Earth holds you gently against Her and Her gentleness is a manner of
speaking so grow not so accustomed as to be numb to Her touch, deaf to Her ballad of love and faith and you can do it so here we go,

her language is so greater than our own
but even the simple mechanics of our carnal ears
can pick up on her acoustic falling waters, water on high, sun torn sky wearing a bolt of
lightning like a badge of my childhood courage

watching her through the window bathe the trees, yawn with such pleasure as to own
chew and render sublime the object of my attention, arousing my affection for both Life
and Dream, pardoning my foolishness like a dog who knows only forgiveness, return,

and shameless unconditional love.

Morning Meditations

Man is multi-dimensional:
Breakfast:
Belly Food
Brain Food
Soul Food

Nourish All Selves.

Word Play (Island):
My I (s) Land, I's Land,
island, surroundings
all exist in and of themselves
each also possesses a Nature.

I assume that the Nature of each
is in fact One Nature;
forgive my boldness, Skeptic.

True Story:
I wrote a poem yesterday traveling
in more than one place at once,
if you'll believe it --
forgive my fictions;
and if you know better don't call them lies
or untrue.  There is a difference between the three.

The Poem:

You will grow
to the heights
of your depths

and there will be Nothingness:

which is, incidentally, the only home
for your Infinite Being.

In other words, you can't stuff Infinity
into something else unless there is aboslutely
nothing there.

Learn to be the Light and the Shadow;
and the expanse inbetween is for you to grow
into a child with Love of All.

Know where you walk:
In the darkness, be Light of appropriate brightness,
in the Light, be the imitating, observant shadow
and study those lights around you.